


;Hold for Applause

by primaryglitch



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Gen, I'll add more tags as i go, but sparingly at the beginning so I didn't want tag rei, quantum rei is here, shinji and asuka do not have a healthy dynamic but god damn are they going to work on it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:13:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26228497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primaryglitch/pseuds/primaryglitch
Summary: The story repeats, again and again. Humanity trapped in an unless well against the turn of time. Until time itself was brought to a halt and life unraveled. The endless symphony silenced.And now, encore.
Relationships: Ikari Shinji & Souryuu Asuka Langley
Comments: 9
Kudos: 7





	;Hold for Applause

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: I've been made aware that there is another fic with this name. I've very attached to this one [I've been working on this for a long time], but I will start working on a new one.

At first, there was nothing, then everything. Overwhelming, overpowering, so vast that the self no longer mattered, where the self was impossible to identify, much less define. There was everyone, every soul that had ever existed, but in there togetherness there became no one. Each a simple raindrop in an ever expansive ocean, impossible to distinguish among the waters. Insignificant, ignored, invisible. In becoming a fraction of an entity so limitless, so infinite, everything once again became nothing. The singularity not longer approached but achieved.

At first, there was nothing, and then there was Asuka.

_ I am myself. I am Asuka Langley Soryu. I am myself, only myself, and no one else. I am myself. I am Asuka… _

Those words echoed in her mind as if they were a distance call rather than thoughts that solely belonged to herself, each syllable a desperate chant to cling onto her sanity. It was uncanny only hearing her own thoughts rather than the constant collaboration of thousands, as if being separate was unnatural. Every inch of her screamed at her to return to the sea, begged her to return to that sweet embrace. Her body craved the intimacy and togetherness that could only be felt within the womb which humanity had returned to, the one she was born from of her own accord. It called to her, whispered that there she would be safe, there she would be free of the pains caused by even the smallest differences between each of what they had been. That she would be finally understood. But that was a lie. As much as she had and still did feel trapped, instrumentality had not been the freedom she wished for.

But that didn’t change that the pain stayed, even after being reborn.

She had died, that Asuka was sure of. She had finally found her mama, finally found the answers she had so desperately needed all those years ago, in all those silence nights and unfallen tears. It had been a euphoria like that which she only had felt on the day had been chosen to be a pilot. It had been such a feeling that it vanished the anguish she had felt on that same day when she felt her mama had truly left her. Rejoined, she had fought more vigorous than ever before, but still, it had not been enough. She shared her mother’s pain in its fullest as the false Lance of Longinus pierced Unit 02’s skull, a pain that shook her to her core. Panic had overtaken her as her mother stopped responding in her time of need, as her organs were vivisected and strung about. But her mama came back to her in those final moments, gilding her hand as Asuka clawed upwards with the vow to kill. That never came to pass, she never had her revenge. Now the sea had washed away her battlefield as if it had never taken place. However, her injuries remained. Dull aches crawled through her, not allowing her to forget for a moment. Even without them, she wouldn't be able to forget with the bandages that clung to her. She was not brave enough to look underneath, not yet.

In confidence of her death, there was a small comfort. She had faced death so many times, and now fallen by it, but never accepted death. Even in that tub, death was not what she searched for. What she desired was to find for the Asuka she felt she should be. But that Asuka imperfect, what defined her was fragile like glass, so easily cracked. Now all the Asukas she had ever been were shattered about, fractions so small the task of collecting them all seemed impossible. So she was left to make anew from the pieces. They both had to.

But first, she had to identify the other shattered soul was mixed among hers.

When she had laid under Shinji, his fingers felt ever so familiar around her neck. A dotted double barline, but she penned in a coda. She would not accept that this would be her end, even as his pressure increased she did not choke out a signal breath. This could not be an end, only a fermata. So she did not thrash nor fight as she would have before, because they were not as they were before. What remained of themselves was two souls, broken and lost in a thousand different ways, She understood this. With her damaged hand, scared from the past, she tried to make him understand.

His tears felt like daggers on her face. From them, she was sure that after everything, he was still Shinji Ikari. And in him, she was repulsed.

She did not know how long they remained like that, when exactly she stopped bearing witness to him and instead saw the sky, with its stars like fractures in the sky. She did not know when she moved to sit at the shore, only just far enough that she would remain untouched by the waves. She did not trust what would happen if she was. He remained as well, and together they stared out into the sea as if it had the answers.

There were no words between them, there was everything and nothing to be said. Besides, after seeing within someone’s transparent soul, what was there left to say? She knew him better than she could ever comprehend, but at the same time did not understand him at all. His contradictory behavior, absurd feelings, his tangled mind. It frustrated her, but it frustrated her more that she knew she was no better herself. That he had seen her core but did not understand her. To only be seen, not embrace, not repulsed, only to be watched was a feeling that crawled under her skin. And to still be seen by him, even now.

However, she knew she could not be without him. As he could not be without her. They had returned from the mother’s womb armed with more knowledge of each other than any human should have. They could tear each other to pieces like ravage dogs, hurt each other in ways they had never come close to before. She could lash out for the old wounds which fester in her mind, hurt him how he had hurt her, as he had defiled her. Yet she could not, she would not. She could never, not now. Perhaps the old Asuka could, but this new Asuka could not- but she considered it. Was that enough, for everything he had done? 

She did not know. But she did know that this Asuka, who did not even know herself, was tired. She was so very exhausted.

Deep within, cradled by all her anger and disgust and outrage directed at that boy- she could not find hate in its purest form. That burning passion, she longed for it, craving its welcoming familiarity in this strange world, was not there. Perhaps it never was. She was trapped with this boy she could never truly love or hate. Humans were not built for instrumentally, to know so much yet understand so little. After seeing one's soul bare, their sins uncovered and their mind dissected, the most repulsive of them on display- there should be hate. But the reality was crueler, and she knew he wouldn’t understand her soul, but be forced to emphasize, to feel her feelings as his. The thought of the pity that could come brought bile to her throat.

She wanted to believe that they were completely separate, with how different they were destined to be, but those similarities they shared haunted her. Made her unsure if she had truly broken away, or if she was still drowning in the twisted heart of humanity. Made her unsure of Asuka.

_ I am myself. I am Asuka Langley Soryu. I am myself, only myself, and no one else. I am myself. I am Asuka… _

She tried to whisper those words, needing her to hear the voice she owned, proof that she was herself. When she tried, only a raspy whisper came out. His fault, she was sure.

She tried to recall anything that would make her Asuka, that was proof she was herself and not a stranger. Her memories felt distant. She struggled to hold onto them, to not lose them to the collective recognition of humanity that had been forced upon her. She grasped for them with desperation previously unknown to her before. Anguished, she even reached for those she gained within the sea, the ones she had hidden away. Finally, through her constricted lungs, familiar words rose from her in gasping breaths

_ If I can't have you all to myself then I don't want anything from you! _

She did now, she did now. But what did she have to show for it? What did she have now? What was left of him, what was left worth keeping? What was left of her, what was left worth keeping? Who was Asuka Langley Soryu?

Why had she let herself be born again?

She hadn't meant to be heard. But her whispers must have reached him. His eyes broke from the sea and felt heavy as they fell on her. She did not meet them, she felt if she would be lost if she meant those eyes, as if they would curse her heart.

She heard him start and stop speaking, trying to find words. But he fell quiet, and she heard the shifting of sand. For a moment, she feared him. She felt his hands one again, but not around her neck. An embrace, an awkward and unsure hug that was most fitting for him.

_ Love, will you be alright? _

How bittersweet. Words so soft, words his or of the other?- the one who had held him as her mama held her. 

It was not a fantasy, not a nightmare. Reality. Something far crueler in nature, but could be tamed in something kind, something soft and caring. Hands that hold you close, the warmth of another. Soft words of whispered promises. Bold laughs and joyous eyes in the sunlight. A life that was not only your own, but shared willingly with another. Hope that in all its ugliness and unpleasantness, there was something of worth. Something worth living for, a reason to exist.

That hope was the reality he had chosen, the reality she had returned to, still burdened with the past and frightened of the future.

He was warm, and she realized it had been far colder than Tokyo’s eternal summers. So she didn’t pull away. Instead, she closed her eyes and imagined the sun she remembered. The sun that surely must still exist, somewhere.

But that could not last, the past could not be changed. The bone bleached sand was under them, the black uncaring abyss above, and in front of them the sea that cradled them. So she opened her eyes, and she was paralyzed.

Instead of the vastness above that waves that promised their loneliness, she saw herself floated there.

The doll gazed back at her, her eyes unreadable, gazed, broken, no life to them. Her body, limb as if held up by a rope. But she was not in that red dress with her hair held up in bows, not the Asuka that had forsaken along with her mother back before. She was the Asuka she had crafted and embraced fully, the Asuka that was not a little girl but a woman. The Asuka was a lie, a perfect beautiful lie. But now there was no beauty, only a ragged doll all dressed up in a fake life.

She did not stand out as much in her pristine plugsuit against the crimson sea as she had the endless blue skies and it terrified her to her core. She wondered if when Asuka looked at her, her dulled plugsuit against the night and bone bleach sands, if she felt the same. If the light she once held had left.

Then in a blink, she was gone and left behind an emptiness in the sky and an emptiness in her heart. The fire that had once burned so bright within her had only embers behind. But she refused to believe all was lost, that she returned to a broken world for nothing. She felt it in him, a small unsure spark. In this barren world, all they had was each other. So, despite it all, she reached up and pulled his arms tighter around her, knowing it was more of a comfort for him that her. In that felting moment shared, so fragile and new, she vowed she would kindle whatever flame she was able to conquer.

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be an Asuka heavy fic jumping off from the end of evangelion. I do not think this is particularly the continuation that would happen if eoe was expanded in cannon, I more am interested in doing a character study of Asuka and how she might handle knowing/guessing that she is stuck with a person she such a heavy history with, without anyone else. I don't think her character would pull a 180, what I picture is a Asuka far more worn out with life and who has to be more honest with herself, but who is trying to survive and maybe eventually even live. This is my first time writing for Asuka, so I am very unsure if my characterizing of her does her justice at all.
> 
> For a bit of clarification, the Asuka over the ocean is Rei, similar to how shinji sees her breifly before strangling Asuka. Instrumentality has been rejected, but aspects still linger somewhat. Also, with all the different translation, I'm sure the two quotes I used don't match up perfectly to all of them. "Will you be okay, love?" is from Yui Ikari at the end. I've seen different translations of this scene, but I thought this one would work nicely.


End file.
